How do you have a life and a garden? Between busy schedules, family time, and pretty lengthy to-do lists, how can we fit gardening moments into our lives without sacrificing precious time? As we close out our 2024 gardening season, it’s a great time to reflect on what worked, what flopped, and how we can make our gardens even better for 2025. This is exactly where CaliKim shines the most, and her new book, The 10-Minute Gardener, helps us become more efficient gardeners who can, as she says, “have a garden and a life.”

 

In this episode, we learn:

• [03:48] What is Kim’s gardening background?
• [06:30] What does her garden & garden zone look like?
• [09:16] Why raised bed gardening is the best option in Florida
• [13:04] Why efficiency is important in gardening
• [14:33] Gift yourself or a loved one the gift of peace and joy with a personalized Wind River Wind Chime!
• [16:03] Bring simplicity into your garden with Kelly Norris's new book, Your Natural Garden.
• [17:34] 3-minute gardening tasks
• [27:21] 5-minute gardening tasks
• [30:51] Simplify your gardening experience with Espoma Organic’s high-quality products!
• [38:03] How to plan your garden for dormant season
• [40:15] How to break down your garden tasks
• [43:13] 8-minute & 10-minute gardening tasks
• [49:06] 30-minute gardening tasks
• [51:00] Where can you find Kim on social media?

 

 

Order my book!

Growing Joy: The Plant Lover's Guide to Cultivating Happiness (and Plants) by Maria Failla, Illustrated by Samantha Leung

Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast,

so you don't miss the amazing episodes we have coming up!

 

Who is CaliKim?

Kim wasn’t always your gardening guru. Growing up on five acres with nine siblings, gardening was more like a chore than a hobby (she'd rather forget those days of picking endless beans)! But as an adult, she started growing food for her family and rediscovered the fun side of gardening.

Her husband, a videographer, got her to film a short clip about adding compost to herbs. That little video turned into a full-time career for both of them and now they've got over 1,600 YouTube tutorials, three books, and a huge online community. Her goal is to simplify the process of gardening so anyone—no matter how packed their calendar—can enjoy growing their own food.

 

 

Time-Saving Gardening Tips That Actually Work

Kim’s book breaks down gardening tasks into these manageable categories: 3, 5, 8–10, and 30 minutes. Here are some of her favorite tips:

Three-Minute Gardening Tasks

Kim calls these her “quick wins.” Simple tasks that make such big difference:

• Fertilizer Fridays: Every Friday, fertilize a small section of your indoor/outdoor plants (while your tea kettle is boiling or you're sipping your morning coffee).
• Swift Seed Sowing: Keep seeds handy in a basket or your pocket. Plant a few each time you pass by your garden—like walking to the trash can or having your morning coffee.
• Tool Tidying: Use dormant garden seasons to clean, oil, and organize your tools. Just set a timer for three minutes and make progress bit by bit.

 

Five-Minute Gardening Tasks

These should be perfect for maintaining your garden:

• Tie-Up Tuesdays/Thursdays: Trellis climbing plants like cucumbers and tomatoes regularly to keep them manageable and pest-free.
• Shade Cloth Setup: In hot climates, cover plants with shade cloth to protect them from intense heat.
• End-of-Season Cleanups: Spend five minutes pulling out spent plants and tidying your garden before winter sets in.

 

Eight- to Ten-Minute Gardening Tasks

• Summer Salad Station: Over a few sessions, fill a container with soil, add greens, and plant your favorite toppings like tomatoes or cucumbers. In just six weeks, you will be munching on fresh salads whenever you want.
• Journal and Research: Set a timer to 10 mins and do a quick research (reviewing seed catalogs and mapping out garden plans.) You can also use a garden journal to note what worked and what didn't in the past season.
• Hustle and Bustle Garden Bed Prep: Involves short, frequent tasks like compost/worm castings, watering, and pulling out old plants to gradually prepare your garden beds—without feeling overwhelmed.

 

Thirty-Minute Gardening Projects

• Composting Made Simple: Set up a compost pile using kitchen scraps and garden waste. Kim recommends keeping materials organized in bins until you’re ready to build the pile.
• DIY Tree Branch Trellis: Use trimmed tree branches to create a natural trellis for climbing plants.

 

 

Making Gardening a Habit

For Kim, gardening is about building habits that stick. She encourages incorporating small tasks into daily routines. You can organize your tasks by gardening seasons—early, mid, late, and dormant—so they’re relevant no matter where you live. For example:

• Early Season: Start seeds inside and get your garden beds ready.
• Mid-Season: Keep things tidy with tasks like trellising and fertilizing.
• Late Season: Harvest and preserve crops while prepping for cooler weather.
• Dormant Season: Think about what worked and plan for next year.

 

 

Mentioned in our conversation:

• Pre-order 10 Minute Gardener by CaliKim
• The First Time Gardener: Raised Bed Gardening by CaliKim
• CaliKim's Smart Pots Fabric Planters
• CaliKim's Seed Collections
• CaliKim's Garden Kits
• Crescent Gardens TrueDrop planters
• Organic Gardening for Everyone: Homegrown Vegetables Made Easy by CaliKim
• CaliKim Backyard at night

 

 

Thank you to our episode sponsors:

Wind River Chimes

Bring the gift of peace, serenity, and magic with chimes this holiday season! Wind River is a Virginia-based company creating premium handcrafted and hand-tuned wind chimes for over 35 years. If you are looking for an amazing gift that can help you or your loved ones grow joy and find a moment of peace, a Wind River chime is the perfect option. Plus, you can engrave the wind sail on the wind chime with meaningful dates, names, or phrases!

Visit windriverchimes.com and use code GROWINGJOY to receive free engraving on your chosen wind chimes.

Quarto: Your Natural Garden by Kelly D. Norris

If you want to bring more biodiversity to your garden, have you considered or heard of New Naturalism? Kelly Norris has just come out with a new handbook all about how to build and maintain natural gardens called “Your Natural Garden“. This book is all about using garden care methods that mimic nature instead of controlling it; with advice, tutorials, and gorgeous photographs offering examples of well-tended naturalistic plantings and the tasks that are needed to properly care for them.

Grab a copy of Your Natural Garden by Kelly Norris at your favorite local bookstore, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, quarto.com or amazon.com to get inspired and take action on your garden.

Espoma Organic

Overwintering your plants or just refreshing their potting mix? Set them up for success with high-quality soil, fertilizer, potting mixes and more! Espoma Organic is dedicated to making safe indoor and outdoor gardening products for people, pets, and the planet. They have an amazing variety of high-quality, organic potting mixes, garden soil, fertilizers, and pest control products that are organic and eco-friendly. To top it all off, they have a huge sustainability commitment with a 100% solar-powered plant, zero waste manufacturing, and eco-friendly packaging.

Visit espoma.com to find your local Espoma dealer or check my Amazon storefront.

 

 

 

Follow CaliKim:
Website
Facebook
Instagram
Youtube

 

 

Follow Maria and Growing Joy:

Order my book: Growing Joy: The Plant Lover's Guide to Cultivating Happiness (and Plants) by Maria Failla, Illustrated by Samantha Leung

Join the Bloom and Grow Garden Party Community Platform & App AKA the plantiest and kindest corner of the internet! Get your FREE 2-week trial here!

Take the Plant Parent Personality Quiz (Get the perfect plants, projects and educational resources for YOUR Lifestyle)

Support Bloom and Grow Radio by becoming a Plant Friend on Patreon!

Instagram: @growingjoywithmaria

Tiktok: @growingjoywithmaria

Subscribe to the Growing Joy Youtube channel! /growingjoywithmaria

Website: www.growingjoywithmaria.com

Pinterest: @growingjoywithmaria